Programming

How essential is it to have decent programming skills for security certifications. I plan to get security + soon, but how heavy is programming in other certs like CEH, OSCP, CISSP.

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Master Of Puppets

I doubt you will need any coding for CEH. For CISSP - none. However, for OSCP you will need at least basic programming skills. Bash scripting and python mostly.

Chances are that for a career in security, some programming skills are going to be a must. In certain positions, you can probably get away without it but I would advise you to get at least a basic understanding of it. It is not that hard.

What kind of a position in security do you want and why?

the_Grinch

I'd say they are fairly important. Largely what I do is policy based, but there are portions that having scripting skills have saved me big time.

YFZblu

Master Of Puppets wrote: »

for a career in security, some programming skills are going to be a must.

/thread

TByrd450

Master Of Puppets wrote: »

I doubt you will need any coding for CEH. For CISSP - none. However, for OSCP you will need at least basic programming skills. Bash scripting and python mostly.

Chances are that for a career in security, some programming skills are going to be a must. In certain positions, you can probably get away without it but I would advise you to get at least a basic understanding of it. It is not that hard.

What kind of a position in security do you want and why?

some fields that interest me are pentesting, network security, and ethical hacking.

JDMurray

Note that programming skills might not be needed significantly for most InfoSec certifications, but a career in InfoSec can benefit significantly from competency in reading scripts and code, understanding the internal working of programs, and the ability to write software for automating repetitive procedures. Learning programming will help you in these regards.

NovaHax

For the certifications...not so important. But if you actually expect to be competitive in the industry as a PenTester...its a must.

Master Of Puppets

TByrd450 wrote: »

some fields that interest me are pentesting, network security, and ethical hacking.

In that case, you better start learning it. Like the others said - you can't do without it. For example, a network security engineer might not need it but will still surely benefit from it.

Are you completely new to programming? Starting with python will be a good idea.

Also, make sure you know what working in security is like. You do not seem to be very familiar with it. Everyone wants to work in security now but very few can tell you what it actually is. How can you want something if you barely have an idea of what it is? Because it looks cool isn't a reason to make an important decision like that. Do not take this the wrong way, it's just advice intended to help you. Dozens of people ask "how do I get into security" on a daily basis but when you ask them why, what is security, what does a pen tester do etc. you get a blank look on their face.

TByrd450

Can someone please explain to me what all security.(pentesting, hacking, network security, and information assurance) I love computers, and I'm training for my A+ right now. I want to do IT for a living but A+ material doesn't excite me. Help desk or consulting( my current job) doesn't interest me much. Security interests me the most, but next school year I will train for my Network+. I may fall in love with networking. I may absolutely hate it. But by the time I finish high school I will have my CompTIA trio. I love to plan ahead and I might need to start programming early.

xax

Hi, I'm doing the OSCP course and I'm writing a lot of bash scripts in this days...simple bash scripts...But I'm in the information gathering phase. I think that in exploitation phase the knowledge about python, C, ex. will be very usefull.

Cold Titanium

I'm also in the OSCP course (Just got into the dev network w00t!)

If I didn't know at least the basics of programming and scripting I'd be having a really bad time right now. Some basic knowledge of c is helpful too. (pointers, arrays, etc)